Trademark Policy

Introduction

The FileZilla project looks after the trademarks covering the FileZilla names and logos. Two aims shaped the rules written down here:

Community work that spreads FileZilla or makes it better should be able to use the name and the logo with as little friction as possible.

At the same time it should be difficult to wave the name or the logo about in a way that misleads people who are searching for the genuine article.

Every use of a FileZilla trademark has to fit this policy. Anything outside it, and without written approval from the project, is unauthorised.

The point of the policy is that the mark keeps pointing at one origin, one level of quality and one level of safety, while community members can still show their connection to the project without worry.

Begin with the obvious question: what are trademarks for? They let people tell one maker's product apart from another's.

More than fifteen years after the program first appeared, a great deal of trust has gathered around the name and around what it promises. On the internet, where the next option is one click away, that trust is often what decides a choice. The project guards the trust its community has invested, and this policy is the instrument for protecting it.

Reports keep arriving about sites that sell the client, or that borrow the mark to push unrelated products and services. Such behaviour is frequently dishonest, leaves users confused and chips away at the project's identity.

Sometimes it comes from enthusiastic users who simply forget how a mark should be handled. More often somebody is trading on the name for profit, occasionally shipping altered builds in order to mislead and to earn from it. Because both users and the reputation of the name deserve protection, every report is examined and handled individually, weighing the intent behind it and how serious the harm is.

The purpose of the paragraphs below is to draw a clear line between permitted and forbidden use. People should always be able to tell who they are dealing with and where their download came from. A site that the project neither built nor runs must never give the impression, deliberately or by accident, that it did.

Guidelines for Web Sites

Mentioning the mark in marketing texts and other publicity around FileZilla products is welcome. That does not extend to advertising which presents a person or an organisation as a distributor of FileZilla products, unmodified copies included. No advertising rights come with the mark, and every use of it has to stay free of confusion.

So you cannot claim to be handing out the FileZilla FTP Client while what you actually hand out is an altered build, nor may you place the logos on your site, in your product's name or in its description.

A handful of plain rules applies whenever the mark turns up in an article or on a page:

Exact form – write the mark exactly as it stands, neither shortened nor glued together with other words;

Symbol – the first or most prominent mention should carry the registered-trademark sign ("®");

Notice – somewhere close by, at least on the same page or on a credits page, add: "FileZilla is a registered trademark of its respective owners";

Distinct look – your pages must not imitate the appearance of the FileZilla site, because a visitor should never be in doubt about whose site is in front of them.

Software Distributions of Unaltered Binaries

Official binaries downloaded from filezilla-project.org — meaning the installer offered for each platform, not the bare executable — may be passed on to anyone in any manner, within the limits of applicable law, without asking further permission. The GNU GPL still governs the software and its conditions must be respected.

Distributing those unchanged binaries under the mark needs no separate approval either, provided you keep to this policy and charge nothing for them.

Nothing inside the official installer may be removed or altered, the mark included. On your pages or in your materials you may state truthfully that you are offering an unmodified FileZilla application, keeping the guidelines above in mind. Where visitors are given the chance to download the product, linking to the project's own site is strongly encouraged, since the download is then faster and more reliable.

Anyone choosing to host the official binaries has to keep the latest stable release available, otherwise visitors end up with a build carrying known faults. Should you have reason to offer an older release, say plainly that it is outdated and offer the current one alongside it.

Modifications

An altered build is no longer the program the mark stands for, so the mark may not travel with it. Give your version its own name, make the difference obvious, and describe the changes you made. This policy sits alongside the software licence rather than replacing any part of the GNU GPL or of any other licence that applies. Wherever the two cannot both be satisfied at once, leave the trademark out entirely, except for lawful descriptive references.

Domain Names

Putting the mark, whole or in part, into a domain name requires written permission from the project. People instinctively read a domain as belonging to the organisation it sounds like, so nearly any such name will mislead someone and thereby break the basic requirement that use of the mark be non-confusing.

Permission under this policy comes with a condition: you will not register a domain containing the string "FileZilla" or anything close to it, will not attempt such a registration, will not have anyone do it on your behalf, and will not take over or actively operate such a domain.

One more category is closed off: reworking the marks themselves. A modified mark invites exactly the confusion the policy exists to prevent and infringes the project's rights.

Reporting Trademark Abuse

Noticed misuse? Send the details by e-mail to [email protected]. The fuller your description, the quicker the case can be judged and answered.

Questions

This text tries to cover the ground thoroughly. If what you have in mind is not addressed here and you are unsure whether it would clash with these guidelines, just ask at [email protected].

Tim Kosse, author of FileZilla and owner of the trademark